Title:

Adotption is Horrible her in Dauphin County Pa.

Word Count:
1964

Summary:
this is a true story of what hapen to myself Coastal and my wife, before I go on i
must take some this time to thank Mayor Stephen Reed, City Coucil member Dan Miller
for being the only two people of all of the policticians to repond when I wrote
them. I will also like to thank the following people for helping me look at life so
much different now, they are Myron Golden, and his brother Dwayne Golden..

Keywords:
adoption,families,coastal,Myron Golden,Dwayne Golden,dale brown

Article Body:
This is our story of what happened to myself & my wife Vanessa Dupree of Harrisburg
Pa. We decided to adopt children after two of our three left home, one relocated to
Dover Delaware and the other went off to college. My wife and I agreed that we
wanted to help where help was needed the most, so we went through all the training
required by law in Pennsylvania and Dauphin County.

The agency we chose to assist us is called Rejoice Adoption & Foster Care Agency.
They showed us many children's photos and background information of each child. We
chose a cute little girl named Kanai Brown from Ohio. We knew she had some
problems, her former foster mother had in her report of her ,lying,stealing and
setting fires. She had also been in foster care since age 2, she was at that time
in a foster care home where her foster mother had adopted her biological brother
but refused to adopt her due to her behavior problems. A month before meeting Kanai
she was matched for adoption with another family. She was taken home with that
family on two weekend visits, and they changed their minds one day before she was
to go live with them for good, so we knew she had some problems.

Our intentions at that time was to adopt Kanai and then adopt her older 13-year old
sister named Kimmisa soon after that. After Kanai had been with us about 3 months,
in September 2004 we made contact with the Ohio about adopting Kimmisa: at that
time Mr.John Roberts her caseworker had informed me that Kimmisa had recently
attacked a foster parent in the home which she was staying in and could not be
placed in a home at this time and that she was currently being evaluated for mental
problems. So that was as far as we had gone with trying to unify the two sisters
(there are 5 siblings in all).

Our adoption hearing for Kanai came up about 3 months later in January 2005;
adoption was final in June of 2005. In June of 2005 we received two more foster
children named Mariah and Jordan Gilbert, ages 9 and 4 from Lancaster Pa. We were
willing to adopt them for as long as their mother Nyshell Gilbert was willing to
give up custody, the children's caseworker was a lady named Karen Rosenberg. Karen
by law was supposed to stop by our house once per month for home visits to check on
the children, but at the time she had classes here in Harrisburg two to three times
per week and would visit us once or twice per week. We all became very good friends
at that time.

In September of 2005 Ms. Nyshell had a hearing to have her rights terminated by
Lancaster County Children and Youth. Karen told us it was okay for us to come, so
we did. Karen got up on the stand and talked about how Ms. Nyshell refused to take
care of herself or her children. She also pointed out the fact that she had a gay
relationship with another female. About three days later Karen came to our house
and we talked about the hearing. She then told us that most of what she said in
court was made up stories, things that just never happened and the real reason why
Ms Nyshell had her kids taken was because she was and still is gay and she stated
that the Judge knew the real reason also. My wife and I were very troubled by this
and we then asked a few more questions about Ms Nyshell. Karen Rosenberg also
confided in us that she does not believe that any child should grow up in a house
with two same sex parents and to make sure Ms. Nyshell loses her case, she would
always ask her where she was working, and then call that employer and tell them she
is a convicted child abuser and of course, she will then be laid off or fired right
before every hearing, which was a lie she was never a convicted child abuser.

The way Ms. Nyshell originally got involved with Lancaster County Children and
Youth ,she was seeking counseling services for her oldest daughter after having
being raped by a grown man. Police advised her to do so when Karen first got
involved in the case she quickly noted that Ms. Nyshell had an adult female living
inside the home. There were also four kids living in the home. Nariah and Hordan
were the two youngest ones she (Karen Rosenberg) told us she tried to get the other
two older kids to say mom had hit them but it was to difficult. Neither was willing
to lie on their mother even after several interviews, so she had six year old
Nariah agree to a make up story about her mother hitting her with a strap so Karen
used this as her reason for pulling all four children out of the home even though
the older two always stuck to their story, that never hit anyone.

Over the next couple of months Karen confided these and many other cases where they
would force parents to confess to things they did not do in exchange for visits
with their children and then kept them because of their confessions. In January
2006 we told Karen we were having second thoughts about adopting Nariah kordan due
to the fact that we believed they were wrongfully taken from their and we just did
not feel good about going through with it and to us this is a lifetime decision. We
just did not see anything wrong with her raising her kids with a girlfriend,
although we (Karen, my wife and I) are all Christian, we disagreed on that one
issue. Over the next month she came by a few extra times and tried to convince us
to change our minds, even though we loved the kids just as much as our very own; we
still told her no.

In February 2006 the children were scheduled for their last and final visit with
their mother, which was to be held at Rejoice Foster Care & Adoption agency and be
supervised by caseworkers employed by Rejoice. Karen was never involved with the
kids visits with their mother, so we did not expect this time to be any different.
We dropped the kids off at Rejoice that evening, handed them over to a Rejoice
caseworker as usual. We came back two hours later and were told by Karen Rosenberg
that Nariah said she was hit with a strap by my wife Vanessa, so therefore she is
taking both kids out of our home. We were very upset because she told us she had
used the exact same story on Ms Nyshell.

The following day, February 15, 2006 Karen Rosenberg reported the abuse allegations
to Dauphin County Children & Youth to a caseworker named Denise Shay. She then came
by Kanai's school that day to interview her. She was asked all kinds of questions,
mostly about us (we know this because after every interview she would come home and
let us know). After 8-10 interviews in March 2006 we went to school to pick up
Kanai and were met by Denise Shay in the parking lot . She told us that Kanai said
my wife and I hit her with a strap on at least one occasion; therefore she was
taking Kanai into custody. She also informed us there would be a hearing tomorrow
before a Master Judge. We found an attorney that evening, Mr Roger Luguana. There
was not a lot to say at the hearing because Kanai admitted in court she lied, there
the Judge said she is to be returned home immediately.

Once the hearing was over , Denise Shay took Kanai and told us she will be right
back, she was going to get her clothes and book bag. She came back out some 30
minutes later and informed us they were going to appeal and Kanai would not be
coming home with us until the appeal is over ( even though prior to the hearing we
were told the Master Judge decision was final). At that time Denise Shay evidently
went to a different judge and claimed I admitted in the Lancaster case to punching
kordan (which was a lie). All of this was done after our attorney had left.

Over the next couple of weeks we were asked to confess to abusing Kanai in exchange
for visits with her - we refused. About three weeks later the county judge, Judge
Hoover agreed to meet with our lawyer Roger Luguana, but he refused to meet with
us. After that meeting Judge Hoover allowed us to have visits with Kanai. We went
to see her twice that week and then I received a call from Denise Shay on our
answering machine stating that we were not being very cooperative with their
investigation or in other words we refused to admit to anything we did not do, so
therefore the visits must stop.

Prior to our next hearing in March 2006, my wife and I received only a couple of
phone calls and went down there to sign papers a couple of times for Dauphin County
Children and Youth,but every time we were always being told some sort of bad news.
We were told the following things would happen if we lost: 1. They would ask the
judge at that time to take Jasmin, our biological 15 year old daughter into
care/custody. 2. We could never pass a background check again so that meant
changing for me and my wife. 3. We would have criminal charges brought against us
after that. 4. If we just sign her over none of those three would happen and we
will have 30 days to think it or change our minds if we wanted to. Denise also said
Karen would be there to let the court know we confessed to her everything, thus
letting us know that Karen was willing to lie in court again as she did in Ms.
Nyshell Gilbert's case. Therefore we choose to sign Kanai over giving up our
rights, prior to our hearing, knowing we had 30 days to decide if we were going to
risk everything or not.

Twenty-eight days later we (our lawyer and us) filled out the paperwork to let the
court know we had change our minds. About two weeks later in March 2006 Judge
Hoover agreed to meet with our attorney again. At this meeting our attorney was
informed we could not change our minds and we had to stick with our first decision
where we must sign her over again, but this time the forms will read "by mutual
agreement", unlike the first one that stated there was a hearing and we were
convicted even though there was no hearing. Even going as far as to give us only 30
days to sign her over again. We waited about 60 days on July 26 2006 to sign her
over again, due to the simply fact it's getting very costly, about 15,000.00 so far
between child support payments for Kanai while back in foster care and attorney
fees, for all three children. The worst part of it was here in Dauphin County they
attach our wages, even though we were never late with a payment. They kept making
the same mistake with the amounts, instead of taking out $800.00 per month, they
kept doubling and tripling that amount, thus leaving us at times with less than
$20.00 per week.

Dauphin County is not a good place to adopt. But since then the dear sent two
people into our lives that change everything for the better their names are Myron
Golden and Dwayne Golden, We will like to thank them for all they have done for us
since our darkest days..